FIRST LOOK: The News in Brief, April 8, 2004

WILL & BABY! Will & Grace star Debra Messing giving birth in Los Angeles yesterday to a healthy baby boy. The tyke weighed in at five pounds, 14 ounces. This is the first child for the actress and her screenwriter hubby Daniel Zelman.

STALKER BOI: Police arrested a Seattle man for allegedly stalking Avril Lavigne. James Speedy, 30, posted $5,000 bail and was released.

SHOCK JOCK DROPPED: Clear Channel choosing to drop Howard Stern's radio show from its chain after facing a proposed $495,000 in FCC indecency fines stemming from 18 alleged violations during Stern's April 9, 2003, show.

TREASURE CHEST: Jessica Simpson suing New Jersey auto-racing company Motorock for $140,000, claiming the company neglected to pay her for wearing its shirt in the video for her song, "With You."

GOOD TO GO? Scott Weiland has been cleared to tour with his new band Velvet Revolver beginning next month. The embattled frontman has spent the last few months in court-ordered drug rehab after pleading no contest to heroin possession.

LIBERAL RAP: Rapper Chuck D will discuss politics on his new radio show, Unfiltered, which begins this month in five markets on liberal network Air America Radio.

WHEN FANS CRY: College student Anthony Fitzgerald suing Prince on Wednesday for allegedly assaulting him after he snapped a photo of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer as he was walking off a flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Fitzgerald claims Prince's bodyguard grabbed his digital camera leaving him "stunned and humiliated."

BAD GIRL: Authorities in Macomb County, Michigan, issuing an arrest warrant for rapper Eminem's former missus, Kim Mathers, one day after she failed to return to a court-mandated drug treatment program.

STORK WATCH: Alamo star Billy Bob Thornton confirming on Thursday that he and galpal, Connie Angland, are expecting a child in October. The actor, who divorced Angelina Jolie last year, has three children from a previous marriage.

BOOTY IN THE BOARDROOM? Us Weekly reporting that ousted Apprentice contestant Katrina is accusing Amy of sleeping with both Nick and Bill. "What is Amy going to say? 'Yes, I'm a whore?' I'd deny it if I slept with two people as well," Katrina is quoted as saying in the upcoming issue.

HARPO'S NEXT GIG: After more than two years in development, ABC and Oprah Winfrey ready to begin production on Their Eyes Were Watching God, a TV movie starring Halle Berry about a free-spirited black woman searching for happiness in 1920s Florida. The flick is an adaption of African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston's classic 1937 novel of the same name.

GROSSES BY THE DOZEN: Last winter's family comedy Cheaper By The Dozen selling nearly 3 million combined DVD and VHS copies during its first 24 hours in release.

HELLO NASTY! The Beastie Boys set to release this summer To the 5 Boroughs, their first studio album since 1998's Hello Nasty packed with lots of political commentary savaging President Bush and U.S. foreign policy. The rap trio will also tour beginning with Japan's Summer Sonic Festival on August 7.

OFF THE HOOK: A misdemeanor battery charge against Vince Neil being dropped after the former Mötley Crüe frontman completed over 100 hours of community service.

LARS? KINGDOM: Willem Dafoe set to star in Danish director Lars von Trier's Manderlay, the second installment in his USA?Land of Opportunities trilogy. The movie continues the story of Dogville's central character, Grace, and is set in the American South during the 1930s and explores the repression of blacks.

ON THE TUBE: Veteran thesps George Segal and Susan Sullivan guest starring in the CBS comedy pilot The Amazing Westerbergs, starring Chris O'Donnell and Jay Harrington about two brothers raised to think they're special, who realize they are not.

KUDOS! Al Green, Charles Fox, Daryl Hall and John Oates, and Don McLean among this year's inductees into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

IT'S MARY-KATE AND ASHLEY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Reps for former Full House stars turned tween entrepreneurs Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen asking the media to no longer refer to them as the Olsen twins. Rather, the sisters would like to be called simply by their own names.

A BAD THING: Prosecutors accusing Martha Stewart of seeking a new trial by trying to "humiliate and embarrass" a juror with rumor and innuendo about his past, including an arrest and several civil judgments against him.

NOT DOING WELL: Worldwide music sales down for the fourth year in a row in 2003, falling 7.6 percent to $32 billion, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry on Wednesday. Overall, global losses amount to a 20 percent drop in the past three years.

REMEMBERED: Veteran ABC News correspondent Jack Smith, who won two Emmys and a Peabody and reported for Nightline and helped develop ABC News' technology beat and its "Cutting Edge" segment, died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer. He was 58.

CODA: Niki Sullivan, who played rhythm guitar and sang backup for Buddy Holly on his early hits with the Crickets, has died. He was 66.